'If it fails, I will be obliged to draw on you again,' returned Gaston, candidly; 'you can't say, however, that I am behaving badly to you.'

'No,' answered Meddlechip, looking at him. 'I must say you are easier to deal with than I antic.i.p.ated. Well, if I give you my cheque for five hundred--'

'Say six hundred,' observed Vandeloup, rising and going to a small table in the corner of the room on which were pens and ink. 'I want an extra hundred.'

'Six hundred then be it,' answered Meddlechip, quietly, rising and going to his overcoat, from whence he took his cheque book. 'For this amount you will be silent.'

M. Vandeloup bowed gracefully.

'On my word of honour,' he replied, gaily; 'but, of course,' with a sudden glance at Meddlechip, 'you will treat me as a friend--ask me to your house, and introduce me to Madame, your wife.'

'I don't see the necessity,' returned Meddlechip, angrily, going over to the small table and sitting down.

'Pardon me, I do' answered the Frenchman, with a dangerous gleam in his eyes.

'Well, well, I agree,' said Meddlechip, testily, taking up a pen and opening his cheque book. 'You, of course, can dictate your own terms.'

'I understand that perfectly,' replied Vandeloup, delicately, lighting a cigarette, 'and have done so. You can't say they are hard, as I said before.'

Meddlechip did not answer, but wrote out a cheque for six hundred pounds, and then handed it to Vandeloup, who received it with a bow and slipped it into his waistcoat pocket.

'With this,' he said, touching his pocket, 'I hope to make nearly ten thousand in a fortnight.'

Meddlechip stared at him.

'I hope you will,' he answered, gruffly, 'all the better for my purse if you do.'

'That, of course, goes without saying,' replied Vandeloup, lazily. 'Have some more wine?' touching the bell.

'No more, thank you,' said Meddlechip, putting on his overcoat. 'It's time I was off.'

'By the way,' said M. Vandeloup, coolly, 'I have not any change in my pocket; you might settle for the supper.'

Meddlechip burst out laughing.

'Confound your impudence,' he said, quickly, 'I thought you asked me to supper.'

'Oh, yes,' replied Vandeloup, taking his hat and stick, 'but I intended you to pay for it.'

'You were pretty certain of your game, then?'

'I always am,' answered Vandeloup, as the door opened, and Gurchy rolled slowly into the room.

Meddlechip paid the bill without making further objections, and then they both left Leslie's with the same precautions as had attended their entry. They walked slowly down Bourke Street, and parted at the corner, Meddlechip going to Toorak, while Vandeloup got into a cab and told the man to drive to Richmond, then lit a cigarette and gave himself up to reflection as he drove along.

'I've done a good stroke of business tonight,' he said, smiling, as he felt the cheque in his pocket, 'and I'll venture the whole lot on this Magpie reef. If it succeeds I will be rich; if it does not--well, there is always Meddlechip as my banker.' Then his thoughts went back to Kitty, for the reason of his going home so late was that he wanted to find out in what frame of mind she was.

'She'll never leave me,' he said, with a laugh, as the cab drew up in front of Mrs Pulchop's house; 'if she does, so much the better for me.'

He dismissed his cab, and let himself in with the latch key; then hanging up his hat in the hall he went straight to the bedroom and lit the gas. He then crossed to the bed, expecting to find Kitty sound asleep, but to his surprise the bed was untouched, and she was not there.

'Ah!' he said, quietly, 'so she has gone, after all. Poor little girl, I wonder where she is. I must really look after her to-morrow; at present,' he said, pulling off his coat, with a yawn, 'I think I'll go to bed.'

He went to bed, and laying his head on the pillow was soon fast asleep, without even a thought for the girl he had ruined.

CHAPTER V

THE KEY OF THE STREET

When Kitty left Mrs Pulchop's residence she had no very definite idea as to what she was going to do with herself. Her sole thought was to get as far away from her former life as possible--to disappear in the crowd and never to be heard of again. Poor little soul, she never for a moment dreamed that it was a case of out of the frying pan into the fire, and that the world at large might prove more cruel to her than Vandeloup in particular. She had been cut to the heart by his harsh cold words, but notwithstanding he had spoken so bitterly she still loved him, and would have stayed beside him, but her jealous pride forbade her to do so. She who had been queen of his heart and the idol of his life could not bear to receive cold looks and careless words, and to be looked upon as an enc.u.mbrance and a trouble. So she thought if she left him altogether and never saw him again he would, perhaps, be sorry for her and cherish her memory tenderly for evermore. If she had only known Gaston's true nature she would not thus have buoyed herself up with false hopes of his sorrow, but as she believed in him as implicitly as a woman in love with a man always does, in a spirit of self-abnegation she cut herself off from him, thinking it would be to his advantage if not to her own.

She went into town and wandered about listlessly, not knowing where to go, till nearly twelve o'clock, and the streets were gradually emptying themselves of their crowds. The coffee stalls were at all the corners, with hungry-looking people of both s.e.xes crowded round them, and here and there in door steps could be seen some outcasts resting in huddled heaps, while the policemen every now and then would come up and make them move on.

Kitty was footsore and heart-weary, and felt inclined to cry, but was nevertheless resolved not to go back to her home in Richmond. She dragged herself along the lonely street, and round the corner came on a coffee stall with no one at it except one small boy whose head just reached up to the counter. Such a ragged boy as he was, with a broad comical-looking face--a s.h.a.ggy head of red hair and a hat without any brim to it--his legs were bandy and his feet were encased in a pair of men's boots several sizes too large for him. He had a bundle of newspapers under one arm and his other hand was in his pocket rattling some coppers together while he bargained with the coffee-stall keeper over a pie. The coffee stall had the name of Spilsby inscribed on it, so it is fair to suppose that the man therein was Spilsby himself. He had a long grey beard and a meek face, looking so like an old wether himself it appeared almost the act of a cannibal on his part to eat a mutton pie. A large placard at the back of the stall set forth the fact that 'Spilsby's Specials' were sold there for the sum of one penny, and it was over 'Spilsby's Specials' the ragged boy was arguing.

'I tell you I ain't agoin' to eat fat,' he said, in a hoa.r.s.e voice, as if his throat was stuffed up with one of his own newspapers. 'I want a special, I don't want a hordinary.'

'This are a special, I tells you,' retorted Spilsby, ungrammatically, pushing a smoking pie towards the boy; 'what a young wiper you are, Grattles, a-comin' and spoilin' my livin' by cussin' my wictuals.'

'Look 'ere,' retorted Grattles, standing on the tips of his large boots to look more imposing, 'my stumick's a bit orf when it comes to fat, and I wants the vally of my penny; give us a muttony one, with lots of gravy.'

''Ere y'are, then,' said Spilsby, quite out of temper with his fastidious customer; ''ere's a pie as is all made of ram as 'adn't got more fat on it than you 'ave.'

Grattles examined the article cla.s.sed under this promising description with a critical air, and then laid down his penny and took the pie.

'It's a special, ain't it?' he asked, suspiciously smelling it.

'It's the specialest I've got, any'ow,' answered Spilsby, testily, putting the penny in his pocket; 'you'd eat a 'ole sheep if you could get it for a penny, you greedy young devil, you.'

Here Kitty, who was feeling faint and ill with so much walking, came forward and asked for a cup of coffee.

'Certainly, dear,' said Spilsby, with a leer, pouring out the coffee; 'I'm allays good to a pretty gal.'

'It's more nor your coffee is,' growled Grattles, who had finished his special and was now licking his fingers, 'it's all grounds and 'ot water.'

'Go away, you wicious thing,' retorted Spilsby, mildly, giving Kitty her coffee and change out of the money she handed him, 'or I'll set the perlice on yer.'

'Oh, my eye!' shrieked Grattles, executing a grimace after the fashion of a favourite comedian; 'he ain't a tart, oh, no--'es a pie, 'e are, a special, a muttony special; 'e don't kill no kittings and call 'em sheep, oh, no; 'e don't buy chicory and calls it coffee, blest if 'e does; 'e's a corker, 'e are, and 'is name ain't the same as 'is father's.'

'What d'ye mean,' asked Spilsby, fiercely--that is, as fiercely as his meek appearance would let him; 'what do you know of my parents, you bandy-legged little devil? who's your--progenitor, I'd like to know?'

'A dook, in course,' said Grattles loftily; 'but we don't, in consequence of 'er Nibs bein' mixed up with the old man's mother, reweal the family skeletons to low piemen,' then, with a fresh grimace, he darted along the street as quickly as his bandy legs could carry him.

Spilsby took no notice of this, but, seeing some people coming round the corner, commenced to sing out his praises of the specials.